Skepticism

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Parks have rules for a reason

Jebus, people. Lately it’s nothing but bad news about people doing stupid things in our national parks: ignoring signs and strolling out to fragile ponds, picking up abandoned bison calves, getting up close to adult bison and getting trampled for their trouble, and now the most horrible story of them all: a young man left the boardwalk and fell into a boiling hot spring.

The grisly death of a tourist who left a boardwalk and fell into a high-temperature, acidic spring in Yellowstone National Park offers a sobering reminder that visitors need to follow park rules, park officials and observers said.

Efforts to recover the body of Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, of Portland, Oregon, were suspended on Wednesday after rangers determined there were no remains left in the hot spring.

There’s just a thin mineral crust over the seething water, which is highly acidic, so boiling a body in that for a day leaves nothing. Stay on the designated trails. Wild animals are wild and active volcanic springs are deadly dangerous.

Also to keep in mind, besides personal danger: it’s a good thing the body dissolved, because park rangers were risking their lives trying to recover the remains, until it became pointless.

Comments

Yes, they make those rules, warning signs and a boardwalk for a reason.
Volcanic springs can and do become incredibly acidic, animals are indeed dangerous.

Somewhere around on my computers, I have a photograph that I snapped of a sign, “Don’t feed the animals”, with a raccoon begging for food beneath it.
The only reward that animal received is, that photograph survives, whereas the animal is long gone and its remains weathered back into the environment. There was no way that I’d feed it and encourage even close approaches to people, with the resultant risks.

He was 225 feet away from the boardwalk! You can’t walk 200 feet on the boardwalks without at least 3 or 4 signs warning you not to leave the boardwalk. He ignored them all and he paid the ultimate fine for that. While most deaths are lamentable, even ones as stupid and idiotic as this one, I’m just totally out of sympathy. Especially since it put others, those trying to recover his remains, at grave risk themselves. Look for this in the next edition of The Darwin Awards.

I actually bought a copy of the (rather long) book “Death in Yellowstone” while I was there. The clerk cheerily informed me it was the best selling book in the park. Full of stories like this one. A great public health advisory, really. Too bad that man didn’t have a copy.

Biking through Elk Island Park (east of Edmonton) years ago, I turned a corner to see a fucking huge bison lounging on the road. I decided to wait for the next car, and ride on the opposite side. Felt a bit of a ninny at the time, but in hindsight I think it was the wise move. One of my companions rode slowly right past it, cooing “nice bossy” as she passed it.

No he wasn’t, he was 225 *YARDS* away from the boardwalk. In either case he is surely a prime candidate for a Darwin Award for being so obtusely foolish (i.e. there are signs everywhere saying to stay on the boardwalk). Over 50 years ago I was at Yellowstone with my adoptive parents and I observed several children who were younger than me actually yelling and chasing a bear cub through part of the park, and no obvious parent (human or bear) was in sight. Young children do foolish things and I always wondered where their parents were, since if the sow had been present there would have been a number of very damaged and dead children.
The recent 23 year old was clearly old enough to know better and his lack of even reasonable judgment clearly cost him his life.

Having been to Yellowstone many times, it is pretty self-evident why there are so many signs insisting that you remain on the boardwalk. The ground around the geysers and pools does not even look safe, with bubbling mud pots and steaming rivulets criss-crossing it. I can’t imagine anyone visiting the park without having heard some of the horror stories of what happens to careless hikers there. I have to wonder if Scott intentionally committed suicide.

My gf still suffers from that, and from extreme sign dislexia (she claims; I suspect it’s largely willful) — it took a while before she stopped cycling through red lights at full speed without looking, for example.

I’m just gonna say it now – I find the concept of Darwin Awards really, really upsetting.

I don’t see anything remotely morally justifiable about celebrating someone dying because of a lapse of judgement, especially for a reason that borders on eugenics (which “removing yourself from the genepool” absolutely reeks of).

Vivec@11:
There is a difference between “not mourning” and “celebrating”. I don’t see any celebrating here except perhaps in your own imagination. I do agree that it’s unfair the great Charles to name an “award” like this after him.

I’m not accusing anyone in the thread of celebrating it, I’m pointing out my discomfort with “Darwin Awards” as a concept.

I don’t like the idea of assigning people awards for dying in generally gruesome ways just because they were the cause of their own death, nor do I like the constant usage of borderline eugenicist language (ie “Chlorinating the gene pool”)

Felt a bit of a ninny at the time, but in hindsight I think it was the wise move.

It most assuredly was a wise move. I stopped at the interpretive center to ask where the campground was before riding through. I was warned that the bison often chase cyclists. They speculated that because we are quick, relatively speaking, and move smoothly we look like predators to the bison.

I was camping, and had towed all my gear over 100km that sweltering day. I was not at all pleased to find out that the campsite was a further 15K. I struggled along making maybe 12 km/h, anxiously peering around each corner trying to see any bison in the growing dusk.

Suddenly something black and huge exploded out of the ditch to my right. I went from 12 to 40 km/h in what felt like two pedal strokes. Fight or flight indeed. Looking back, I saw that it was a moose that had been resting in the ditch and it was running away from me…

I have a friend who actually ran into a bison with her bike on that same road. But that’s another story.

Not surprised to see Darwin Awards mentioned here as well. There was hooting about them all over the comment sections I read on news sites, too. I get it, he was a fool, but there’s just a bit too much glee in this boiling-to-death for me.

Think of how this young man died. The terror and the agony of it. Put yourself in his position. Then if you still find yourself “out of sympathy” for him… well then…

Yes, he foolishly ignored the signs. It probably never even occurred to him the danger he was in, or the potential consequences for others. It may never have even entered his head. But that doesn’t mean he deserved to die, least of all in the horrible way he did.

Years ago, I bought a book that collected “Darwin Award” stories. I was young and stupid (younger and more stupid than I am now I mean) and thought it would be funny. The more I read the more I realised that it wasn’t funny at all. It was callous, unsympathetic, and utterly dismissive of the pain and anguish suffered, not only by the recipients of the “reward”, but also the loved ones they left behind. Not to mention the not-so-subtle overtones of eugenics, the smug superiority and assorted pseudo-scientific nonsense. I felt utterly ashamed of myself. So now, when I hear people quip about someone being deserving of a Darwin Award, I judge them. I judge them harshly.

I usually finish every book I buy, even the awful ones, but in a rare move for me I never finished that one. I recycled it so hopefully something useful came out of it – like toilet paper.

Maybe Yellowstone needs to be shut down. Or at least the sections with the deadly in minutes hot springs blocked to visitors. Yes, this young man made a bad, really stupid mistake. He showed poor judgement. But being dissolved in a hot spring is a pretty ghastly punishment for poor judgement. Make it impossible for anyone to do something so wrongheaded again.

I happen to know of a uranium mining concern who would be more than happy to take Yellowstone off of the government’s hands and ensure nobody every goes near that land ever again.

At some point, we do have to recognize that people will make idiotic choices and we can’t guard against all of them. 225 yards off of the boardwalk was a hell of a lot of effort, over rough terrain, to finally meet tragedy. Should we encase all hot springs and acid pools in concrete? Give the park to the mining concerns, so that we no longer have people being friendly with animals disinterested in friendship?
Surround all highways with 1 km tall walls while we’re at it, as we still get people walking into traffic.
At some point, we either decide that some people will circumvent any protective barriers in place and then withdraw that entire venue forever, then, withdraw technologies, then we all are left in our protected environment, not permitted to touch sharp objects, use fire or cut our food, shivering in the dark while starving.
Or we protect within reason, accept the occasional instance where someone does something mindboggingly stupid. It’s not like we can assign a SLAP drone to protect them.

Or we could acknowledge that there are some places on earth that really aren’t human habitats and stop letting tourists endanger themselves and the place by wandering through there without knowing what they’re doing.

Except that if you banned tourists from Yellowstone you’d just get them sneaking in, drinking, and dying in hot springs without anyone even knowing what happened to them. People.

“People doing dumb things in the wild” anecdote that ended somewhat more happily:

The family and I went camping in upstate NY. This particular camp was fairly human intensive and had, among other things, garbage containers that, if closed properly, are difficult or impossible for non-human animals to get into. Note the caveat “if closed properly.”

While hiking, we saw a racoon. It was curled up on its side and sitting by the lake, not moving. We got as close as seemed prudent to look, but left it alone. It didn’t react much, though it did poke its head up enough to reassure us that it wasn’t dead.

Later, we ran into a park ranger and told him about the animal, thinking it might be ill or possibly rabid. The ranger explained that, no, that was not what was going on. He explained that people are careless about closing the garbage and racoons in particular get in and scavenge. They particularly like old fruit. Old, sometimes fermenting fruit. What we had seen was a racoon with a hangover.

The moral: Keep your garbage away from the critters and close all containers carefully. The world does not need alcoholic racoons.

I live in Iceland which – despite all its beauty – can be a pretty dangerous place. For example, we have hot springs like the ones in Yellowstone, tricky currents at the beaches, steep slopes and slippery glaciers and rather unpredictable weather.
And we have tourists, of which too many ignore all warnings and common sense when they visit the country. Some get hurt, some die.
I think the last sentence of PZ’s blog post is the most important one to remember before you behave like a jerk and ignore warnings: You can do with your life and health as you please but there are others – tour guides, park rangers, rescue services – who will also have to risk their lives because of your stupidity.

I also used to enjoy the Darwin Awards schtick and have also been feeling vaguely uneasy about it in recent years. As so often, it’s the more extreme commenters that make you think again: “Ugh, that dude sounds like an asshole. Wait… what does that make me?”

Even the ones who you really would shed zero tears for (killed in acts of needless aggression against people or animals, say) still have family and are still human beings.

I do feel sorry for this poor young man, and for his sister, who will blame herself for the rest of her days.

This death has little to do with hot springs, acidic or otherwise, and all to do with people ignoring rules they don;t understand.

As a child I used to go vacationing at a seaside resort where, on some days, the current strongly brought people out. Since not every tourist spoke the same language, the beach wardens used a system of flags (red, yellow, and green – guess which colour meant “do no bathe”?) which wear explained in a handful of languages in a large number of signs, basically ubiquitous in the camping site.

And yet, every year some tourists went to swim with the red flag and drowned. And too often the beach wardens risked their lives in a rescue attempt – usually coming back with a dead body.

I don’t know that drowning of exhaustion as the beach gets more and more far away is so much better than boiling hot acid. At least that’s fast.

In my opinion, there is no reason to shut people off from locations which are extremely safe if you follow the rules.

I spent several days in Yellowstone some 25 years ago and was impressed at the number of ways one could die there (from stupid actions). I saw people walking, camera in hand, out toward herds of bison. F’ing nuts. There was one massive roiling mud pool that looked like instant death. Lots of other hot and dangerous looking pools. I was never tempted to hop off the boardwalk. You just couldn’t tell, in some places, whether or not the crust of minerals on the surface would even hold your weight, or what was underneath.

Tragic for the young fellow and his family. But they have signs up to tell you what you shouldn’t do in order to stay alive and well.

The grisly death of a tourist who left a boardwalk and fell into a high-temperature, acidic spring in Yellowstone National Park

I didn’t know nature was part of the liberal feminist conspiracy that is violently oppressing men, trying to tell them what to do.
Oh, wait, it isn’t. It’s a dangerous place. It’s a place where you need to take precautions and heed the rules and fucking listen to people who know better than you.
But there’s a big fucking segment if the male population, especially the young male population who thinks that they’re better than the rest of us, that being safe is “girly”, that real men don’t need no stupid boardwalks.
I bet that toxic masculinity killed this guy as much as toxic springs did.
Yes, a man died. A man died from his own choices, his alone. He endangered others with his choices. He thought that rules are for other people. He’s right. Those other people are called “the living”

The Being Bloody Stupid Act may not be formally encoded into any legislative codex, but it’s one of the laws the universe enforces very strongly. Humans generally don’t enjoy it when this happens.

As I get older, I find more and more I’m starting to believe it’s impossible to save anyone. People will do stupid things for stupid reasons, and nothing you or I can do is going to stop them. With clear signposted warnings, people will do stupid things because they apparently believe the rules of the universe don’t apply to them (maybe they don’t actually believe this. But given the way they’re acting…). This isn’t a reason to stop posting the warning signs – the signs serve their purpose every time they notify someone who’s willing to pay attention to them.

But, to paraphrase an old joke: this guy was given a set of rules, a whole heap of warning signs and a board walk to walk upon. What more did he want to preserve his safety?

I don’t really disagreethat people can off themselves for a lot of stupid reasons, it’s just that the backpatting and joking about this really, really turns me off. A dead person is still a dead person, and I don’t like it when people die.

What it reminds me of is a story I saw a bit back when e a clearly suicidal homeless guy attacked some cops with a knife while yelling “kill me” and then the response to him getting shot was “lmao had it coming, don’t attack cops with knives.” The guy was clearly mentally ill, or at least not in control of his facilities at the moment. There might not have been any option but to shoot him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cheer on a mentally ill guy committing suicide by cop.

Gallows humor is one of the ways that humans deal with death and tragedy, but I think that only gets a pass when you aren’t deliberately sharing the story to a wider audience. If you come across a story like this and crack a joke to handle it, that’s natural. If you share the story while making that joke, then you’ve crossed the line into mocking. (To clarify, no, I’m not accusing PZ of doing this – his post comes across as a warning, not mocking – just expressing my perspective on when such humor is and isn’t forgivable.) The Darwin Awards clearly fall into the latter category; they’re about letting people feel smugly superior while ignoring the tragedy and the fact the everyone occasionally makes mistakes, and our whole lives aren’t colored by a single mistake even if that mistake is fatal.

dianne @ 19: “Maybe Yellowstone needs to be shut down. Or at least the sections with the deadly in minutes hot springs blocked to visitors. Yes, this young man made a bad, really stupid mistake. He showed poor judgement.”

And @ 22: “Or we could acknowledge that there are some places on earth that really aren’t human habitats and stop letting tourists endanger themselves and the place by wandering through there without knowing what they’re doing. ”

No, that’s wrong. Yes, there are some people who die when some environment isn’t perfectly safe, and many environments aren’t. But not all environments can ever be made perfectly safe, so people will always die. And yes, they are the people who at least on that one occasion show bad judgment.

But for every 23-year-old who wanders to his death in a hot sulphuric spring, there are millions of visitors to Yellowstone who _don’t_ do that. Shutting it off to protect him punishes them all — by no longer letting them see these wonders of nature — for the stupidity of the one. And what’s next? People get killed by their bad judgment in jay-walking in front of vehicles whose drivers for one reason or another can’t or won’t or don’t stop or swerve in time, too. What should we do about that, if we are intent on removing all dangers people’s bad judgment can get them into — put pedestrian-proof fences around all streets and roads, or just simply abolish motor vehicles?

And even if we did that, aren’t there still a zillion possibilities for people’s bad judgment to get them into hot water — heh, sorry — like sharp utensils and heights and heavy machinery and food poisoning from stuff that goes old in your fridge and… At the very least, you’d have to let everybody eat only food from some risk-approved commissary, using a blunt spork. In the end, you’d have to lock everyone into padded cells.

Nope, sorry. The world is a dangerous place, and some places in it are a little more dangerous than others. Everyone is in the end responsible for himself; to look both ways before you cross the street, to not eat stuff that smells “only a little” fishy, to not lean too far out over the rail of the observation tower… And to not wander down some fucking geysir.

Sorry, I’m not intentionally trying to be callous for the sake of it — but I find the prospect of the supernannyism you seem to be more or less unwittingly advocating to be at least as evil as a little bit of callousness.

Seeing the mention of Darwin Awards upthread reminded me of a post by Heina Dadabhoy over at The Orbit.

I used to love the Darwin Awards. When I had the opportunity to purchase a used copy of the boxed set, I jumped on the chance. I eagerly devoured the books over the course of a few days. Partway through, I stopped cold. I had recognized one of the stories. It was of a family friend who had died of a freak accident at Yosemite. I had been to his wedding and I had attended his funeral. At the latter, I had witnessed the weeping of his widowed wife and the frightened confusion in the eyes of his orphaned children. Suddenly, at least some of the stories seemed like tales of tragedy rather than gleeful recountings of “stupid” people who “took themselves out of the gene pool”.

Not long after I’d read the books, I attended Skepti-Cal. Wendy Northcutt, the person behind the Darwin Awards, was one of the speakers that year. During her Q&A, I was to find that there is a reason the Wikipedia entry for the Darwin Awards lists “sadism” as a related topic (if only ableism were as well). I had asked something along the lines of “Some of these seem like freak accidents rather than acts of stupidity. Do you check to see if they were?” Her response indicated rather callous indifference, and I officially lost my taste for laughing at others’ misfortune and perceived lack of intelligence.

I agree with her completely (and with many of the commenters who expressed similar sentiments). One of my middle school teachers introduced our class to the Darwin Awards as something to laugh and joke about. Later I learned why that is a really heartless and horrible thing to do.

“I find the prospect of the supernannyism you seem to be more or less unwittingly advocating to be at least as evil as a little bit of callousness.”

100% agree. Americans already have a million things in place to stop the unthinking from accidentally hurting themselves or others. I suspect most of them originate from our litigious society. (For the longest time, 20oz bottles of 7-Up carried a warning not to point the bottle top at yourself, because the cap could blow off and take out your eye. You know that was on there because someone didn’t know how to open a bottle of carbonated beverage.)

When I visited Ireland and Northern Ireland some years back, I was stunned by how much access people had to dangerous places, barred by nothing more than a sign warning them of the dangers. It was wonderful. At the Cliffs of Moher, a sign warned you should stay on the landward side of the wall, as the cliffs do continue to erode (a woman had fallen to her death the week prior to my visit, in fact). And yet there was a path SIX INCHES DEEP worn on the oceanward side of the wall where everyone obviously walked because the view was much, much better.

And up at the Giant’s Causeway, there’s a sign at the head of the trail listing about twelve ways you can get killed. I read them all, noting a few I hadn’t even thought of (hey, ocean surges can grab you off the rocks and then pummel you against them!). And then I went out and climbed on the rocks, as people are allowed to do, and had a great time. And yes, I stayed away from the bits closest to the ocean, unlike the fellow I witnessed get slammed against them by a large wave. (He survived with nothing more than bruises, but came in off the rocks immediately after.)

The urge to do dangerous-but-thrilling things is human. With adequate warnings, sensible people will judge what level of risk they can take. Sometimes they make mistakes. The only way to prevent people being injured is—well there isn’t, is there? If we want a functioning society, there are going to be transportation vehicles that sometimes fail or have drivers/pilots who make errors. Crossing the street in Midtown Manhattan is beyond the skill of many tourists (you can always tell NYers on vacation: we’re the ones who jaywalk incessantly). People will go out in boats, go swimming in the ocean, climb Everest, jump out of airplanes or off high places. This is part of what humans do.

I feel very bad for that guy who got himself killed in such a horrible way. And I don’t consider him an “acceptable loss” to the human race. But there is no denying that he willfully ignored many signs and instructions. He died where millions and millions of other people have been more sensible and came home from Yellowstone perfectly safe. His individual foolishness is no reason to wreck the connection between those millions of people and the natural beauty of the park.

I find the prospect of the supernannyism you seem to be more or less unwittingly advocating to be at least as evil as a little bit of callousness.

I actually sympathize with dianne, even if shutting down the park altogether might not be the best solution to problem tourists. It’s not just this one idiot endangering himself that we have to worry about (not to mention that he also endangered the rangers who tried to retrieve his corpse). Tourists at Yellowstone, and other parks, have demonstrated appallingly cavalier attitudes toward their own safety and the integrity of the ecosystem: they are constantly invading the animals’ space, feeding the animals, leaving garbage everywhere, taking off-leash dogs where they ought not to be (and letting them shit everywhere besides), and on it goes. One example in the news right now – Pacific Rim, in B.C. (Canada), currently has a problem with two wolf packs habituated enough to humans to endanger people at the campgrounds. If the situation escalates, it is likely that the rangers will be forced to kill them. This is not just a case of some isolated jerks putting themselves in harm’s way. This is a case where keeping a park open for tourists has actively harmed it.

Now, of course the blame for these incidents is properly placed on these individual bad tourists. But bad tourists are so common that they ought to be treated as an inevitability, even in parks that make every effort to keep everyone safe. And at this point, I’m no longer convinced that the benefits of keeping a national park open to the public outweigh the inevitable harm.

Sorry, I’m not intentionally trying to be callous for the sake of it — but I find the prospect of the supernannyism you seem to be more or less unwittingly advocating to be at least as evil as a little bit of callousness.

I worked in the chemical industry for many years. The had rigorous SOPs (standard operating procedures), training, and required equipment to keep you safe on the job. Nannyism you would call it.
But we were safer on the job than at home by statistics. There are reasons for obeying safety rules.

(For the longest time, 20oz bottles of 7-Up carried a warning not to point the bottle top at yourself, because the cap could blow off and take out your eye. You know that was on there because someone didn’t know how to open a bottle of carbonated beverage.)

Actually, I think it’s because under certain (rare) circumstances, the pressure in the bottle can cause the top to shoot off like a champagne cork the minute it’s slightly loosened.

I’ve actually seen that happen once. The bottle wasn’t pointed at anyone’s face but it if it had hit someone’s eye at close range at just the right angle, it may have caused serious injury.

Sorry, I’m not intentionally trying to be callous for the sake of it — but I find the prospect of the supernannyism you seem to be more or less unwittingly advocating to be at least as evil as a little bit of callousness.

“I worked in the chemical industry for many years. The had rigorous SOPs (standard operating procedures), training, and required equipment to keep you safe on the job. Nannyism you would call it.”

No, actually I don’t think I would.

Because: You seem to be advocating for having rules, and expecting people to follow them, are you not? In case I wasn’t clear, that was what I was trying to say, too: The failure of that tourist to follow the rules and stay on the path was his own fault, and should not lead to shutting down the national park to everyone else.

Or, to put it another way: Those SOPs, safety training, and equipment requirements you mention are not foolproof, are they? Even despite their existence, accidents happen in the chemical industry, and people die, do they not? So should all chemical industry globally be banned and shut down…?

The nannyism I’m protesting is not having SOPs, safety training, and equipment requirements (equivalent to requirements to stay on the marked footpath); it is to shut down the chemical industry (national parks) because people still die in spite of them, because they’re not following them.

“There are reasons for obeying safety rules” is what _I_ was saying; “Some people don’t, so let’s shut the whole thing down” is what I was arguing against. Which one do you agree more / disagree less with, Nerd of Redhead?

Some people don’t, so let’s shut the whole thing down” is what I was arguing against.

You didn’t come across as saying that, as I saw a bit of libertarism (I make the decision on how to be safe, not the park/feds/nannies) in your response.
A worker died when I worked for a giant chemical firm because he failed to follow the SOP’s, and got sprayed with a deadly chemical. Who is at fault in your mind? The man who died, or the company that failed to make him safe?

A worker died when I worked for a giant chemical firm because he failed to follow the SOP’s, and got sprayed with a deadly chemical. Who is at fault in your mind? The man who died, or the company that failed to make him safe?

What more frequently happens when a worker violates SOP? Disciplinary action, up to and including termination, with criminal charges, if appropriate (such as causing harm to another person). One thing that can help is fining those who break the rules heavily, as the enforcement action alone costs money to enforce and rescues cost even more, both in financial cost and human lives endangered in a rescue.
That said, rescuers are trained and reinforced, never endanger oneself to rescue a victim, lest we now have to rescue two victims and the number of those in need of rescue increase forever.
Think one of the zombie movies, “Send more paramedics”, said by radio to dispatch by a hungry zombie. That was a humorous tip of the hat to that lesson.

It’d be one thing to trip or get knocked over the rail by accident, it’s another thing entirely when one decides to climb that rail, then proceeds to do so. Going 225 yards to meet one’s end only compounds the idiocy of that young man.
I may have done some wild things at that age, but never *that* outlandishly rife with potential harm!

A worker died when I worked for a giant chemical firm because he failed to follow the SOP’s, and got sprayed with a deadly chemical. Who is at fault in your mind? The man who died, or the company that failed to make him safe?

You ask that all you want; that’s not what I’m talking about.

Should the chemical industry as a whole be banned because of it; or that firm you and the dead man worked for be shut down? That was what dionne@19/22 advocated, and I argued against.

But, yeah, OK: After you’ve answered the above — and only then! — you can go on to explain how it was “the company that failed to make him safe” if, as you say, “he failed to follow the SOP’s”. After that, as the next step, let’s consider a case where it wasn’t just a company’s internal SOP’s that weren’t followed, but health-and-safety regulations based on law. What’s the consequence then; we shut down the parliamentary system of law-making in the country in question? That would be the ultimate consequence of dionne’s (and your?) logic of “if they don’t follow the rules, let’s shut the whole thing”, wouldn’t it?

“Libertarian”… Yeah, in my late teens / early twenties, perhaps. (OK, maybe mid-twenties; hopefully not long beyond that.) The last few years (decades?), I’ve actually been thinking Churchill got it pretty much exactly backwards in that famous quote, you know, “not socialist young no heart, not conservative older no head, yadda yadda”. I think maybe it should go something like “If you aren’t a libertarian when you’re young, you have no fire in your soul; if you don’t start leaning more towards a ‘Big Society’ egalitarian approach and see lots of nuance and complications when you’re older, you’ve got no sense or compassion.” (Yeah, obviously needs a bit more work to be Twain/Wilde/Churchill-level pithy.)

So no, I don’t think I’m very libertarian any more. (But, uh, is it somehow “not skeptical(R)[TM]” to be “Libertarian”?) But still, yes, I suppose in the end we all do make the ultimate decision on whether to be safe or not… Your “giant chemical firm” apparently did have safety-SOP’s in place. Who decided not to follow them; your co-worker who died, or the firm? Yellowstone apparently has (I’m judging purely from this blog post, haven’t followed any links) prominent signs, and lots of them, exhorting people not to stray from the footpath. Who made the decision to veer from the path; the unfortunate tourist, or Yellowstone?

I haven’t been to Yellowstone. How would shutting that down — banning me from ever being able to see it — because this bloke killed himself be fair; am I at fault for his fuckwittery?

Lots of mental wanking without concrete answers. You may not demand ABSOLUTE safety, which is impossible, but many do….
Now, who is morally responsible for the death, versus who is legally responsible for the death? If they don’t match, there is the problem.

A) AKA “I don’t have any good answers, so I’ll try to cover that by being utterly superior and dismissive”. Works only if nobody points it out, so… Fail.

B) Who said I owe you any “concrete answers”? Where are the ones you owe me first? To wit:
* You seem to be advocating for having rules, and expecting people to follow them, are you not?
* Those SOPs, safety training, and equipment requirements you mention are not foolproof, are they?
* Even despite their existence, accidents happen in the chemical industry, and people die, do they not?
* So should all chemical industry globally be banned and shut down…?
And:
* Should the chemical industry as a whole be banned because of it; or that firm you and the dead man worked for be shut down?
* What’s the consequence then [if it were laws, not just company SOP’s, that were violated]; we shut down the parliamentary system of law-making in the country in question?
* That would be the ultimate consequence of dionne’s (and your?) logic of “if they don’t follow the rules, let’s shut the whole thing”, wouldn’t it?

You’ve got some nerve, complaining about “…without concrete answers” when you yourself haven’t even attempted any answer, concrete or not, to any of the above.

You may not demand ABSOLUTE safety, which is impossible, but many do….

Yeah, dionne appeared to be demanding exactly that, and I pointed out that it is A) impossible, and B) unfair. So WTF are you getting on my case for, when it’s dionne that made the demand for “ABSOLUTE safety”?!?

Now, who is morally responsible for the death, versus who is legally responsible for the death? If they don’t match, there is the problem.

B) Actually I don’t much care, partly because it isn’t what I was talking about, but mainly because it’s bleeding obvious. So, if I were to comment on that, anyone who wilfully ignores the safety regulations obviously only has themselves to blame.

B) But no, that’s actually not my problem. This is a different problem than the one I was talking about, so why the heck do you keep pestering me with it? Stop it. Go pester someone who was talking about that one and stop gibbering at me. Just stop. I wasn’t talking about that one to begin with, and to the extent that I let myself be dragged into it by you, you have been totally unresponsive on any of the issues. And now you’ve resorted to downright insults, so you’ve used up your civility quota from me. So stop. Go away. Go pester someone else, or preferably, of course, stop with these boorish tactics and pestering people altogether. Thank you.

Now, who is morally responsible for the death, versus who is legally responsible for the death? If they don’t match, there is the problem.

That’s a simple enough question. Did the NPS place guardrails and a boardwalk with plentiful warning signs that warned of a potentially fatal environment and to remain on the boardwalk?
If yes and from multiple reports, both from persons here who have visited the same and similar other sites and media reports, the NPS most certainly did.
Did the young man utterly disregard those safety warnings, exit the boardwalk against the warning signs, defeating the rail or any other barrier? He most certainly did.
My only real question now is to those who have been to that area or similar areas in that park, can a toddler or small child defeat that rail without climbing or is there adequate provision to prevent a minor trip from becoming a potential tragedy? The question has nothing to do with the case at hand, I’m just curious as to what provisions are present to protect small children from the hazards at those attractions.

@crconrad, from my seat, some people are arguing with those that they overall agree with. Perhaps one and all should re-read what was said previously all around?
Indeed, I even mentioned what happens to employees that violate a safety SOP, disciplinary measures, up to and including termination and turning the matter over to law enforcement when appropriate.
I don’t waste energy arguing with someone that I agree with, even if I disagree with some rationale that was mentioned, I find common ground and build upon that, the difference frequently resolve themselves over time.

Legally or morally? Morally, I will agree with you. The law, on the other hand….

Having sat on multiple civil juries, I’m intimately familiar with “the reasonable person hypothesis” and multiple avenues of civil liability from both a juror perspective and as an information security professional.
Would a reasonable person conclude that a warning sign indicating a dire threat to live and limb, plus a boardwalk with rail/barrier conclude that a reasonable effort was made by the cash strapped NPS to protect life and limb.
To argue otherwise would be a tough row to hoe, no, it’d be closer to trying to row your kayak up Niagra Falls, with any competent attorney.

I’ve frequently joked, largely out of frustration, “I can make this safe – all I need to do is get rid of all of the people”.
Besides safety regulations, SOP’s, signs, barriers, walls, protective technologies, people still do stupid things, be it improperly donning and removing PPE and contracting ebola to user answering the telephone and giving “a foreign sounding man’s voice” access to their computer, when incessant training, e-mails and web portal messages warn against that very thing. A child in Cincinnati manages to overcome multiple barriers, as any four year old will do, ended up in a gorilla enclosure, with tragic results for the gorilla, but thankfully, the child wasn’t torn limb from limb. A man climbs over a rail, departs a boardwalk copiously bearing signage warning of the extreme potential for death or severe injury, goes 225 yards from the boardwalk and dies precisely as the signs warned him of.
Yep, the world would be a hell of a lot safer without humans on it. Boring, but nature would likely enjoy the break.

I visited Yellowstone back in 1960. I walked along boardwalks to the hot springs. Near the hot springs, there was a simple rail made of plumbing steel pipe to guard against somebody leaning over and falling into the springs. No bottom screen, no fencing at height above waist to an adult, but signs were posted warning of the danger. One look of the area was enough to convince me to stay on the boardwalk, as the ground appeared to be unstable. That should be sufficient in non-suing world.

@Nerd of Redhead, thanks. I was born in 1961 and clearly recall many things, from the shooting of JFK through today and quite well recall the massive safety changes that have occurred over my lifetime.
I even recall how upset both of my parents were over the death of JFK, something odd in today’s political polarized climate, as they were life long republicans. How glad that I am that mom passed away before the tea party was born and that dad’s dementia prevented him from seeing how poisonous our political environment has become.
But, I digress.
During my lifetime, babies rode in mom’s arms in the front seat of the car, a car with no safety belts, through mandatory safety belts, air bags, side air bags, antilock brakes and more.
We’ve gone from where an accident claimed a life, “It was God’s will” to, “Was he/she wearing a safety belt?”. Where rides that were quite tame that I rode as a child could not be found when I had children – I found them in the Middle East when I was deployed there (and a similar “It’s God’s will” nonsense being spoken of, rather than wearing your damned safety belt and the goddamned horn isn’t the brake pedal!!!).
So, protection technologies have changed drastically over our lifetimes. I’d love to hear what is present today.
I’m willing to bet that the boardwalk is farther from the thin crusted area and there may well be a barrier to keep a kid from falling off of the boardwalk. But, I doubt that a wire fence is in the way, even I gripe about the fence blocking a good photo of a scene and miles of chain link fence isn’t cheap at all, either to install or maintain in an acidic environment. Galvanization only goes so far to protect steel, all bets are off once one adds hydrogen sulfide into the equation.

@zetafunction, interesting note.
Personally, it’s been more than a few times that I’ve been waved in by lifeguards, while happily treading water.
On one occasion, we had attended a certain North New Jersey Beach that is clothing optional.
I had dipped into the water to cool off, enjoying swim, I moved out beyond wave smashing me in the face while standing.
Initially, I was annoyed at crabs trying to nip my toes, so I moved further out…
Around ten-fifteen minutes later, I turned around to tread, looking landward.
To my horror, I saw my wife jumping as she could barely do at the time, due to spinal trauma and the lifeguard near spastic in waving and blowing a whistle I was unable to hear.
It turned out, the entire near-debacle extended over a half hour, I swam out into the near-channel, known currents pulled me toward NYC.
As I began my swim against the tangential current, I figured, accurately, that I’d end in the weed patch on the “textile side” of the beach.
I waded back to meet my wife and worshipful lifeguard.
Just a mental note on going outside of bounds.
I’d do it any day of the week and rescue the rescue swimmer.
If I end up where a rescue diver could not recover, go back fucking home.
Either I’ll rescue myself or I’ll fail, due to known medical issues, that falls outside of suicide, as I’m *well* documented in health. My military medical record file had long been stored seventeen places or more.
As we’re discussing this, let’s suffice it to say, *we’re alive*.
No clue on tomorrow…

Gaaahh. I don’t care if it was his fault or not, no one deserves to fall into a pit of boiling acid. It’s probably best that his body dissolved before they could find it. I doubt that his friends and family would want to see what was left of him.